To The Moon

$Infosys(INFY)$  

$Intel(INTC)$  

$Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp(CTSH)$  

Infosys plunged 8% within 30 minutes of the news. Intel, the 9th largest H-1B employer, is caught in the crossfire even though the Trump administration literally bought a 10% stake in them and Nvidia just threw in $5B. Cognizant also took a hit, sliding nearly 5% as investors panicked over how the company will handle higher visa costs.

And the reason is clear: Trump just hiked the cost of an H-1B visa to $100,000 per year — a mind-blowing 1,000% increase. With ~85,000 new visas a year, companies are staring at an $8.5 BILLION annual bill.

The original plan was even worse. It targeted new AND existing visa holders. That would have wrecked companies like Amazon (11,000 H-1Bs, nearly $1B a year in new costs) and left the top 15 firms burning $7.2B annually just to keep workers they already employ.

After a wave of corporate panic, the policy was softened to apply only to new applicants. That’s less devastating, but it still slams the door shut on foreign talent.

To put this into perspective: there are ~700,000 active H-1B workers in the U.S. If the first version had gone through, that’s $63B a year in fees. Even now, the revised version still bleeds $8.5B annually.

Who’s getting squeezed the most? Indian workers (73% of all H-1Bs) and Chinese workers (13%). Ironically, existing holders actually benefit from less competition. But the bigger picture is brutal: America just made itself way less attractive to top global talent.

And Silicon Valley is ground zero. Around 20–25% of electrical engineers there are on H-1Bs — triple the national average. No wonder Google, Microsoft, and others are urging H-1B staff overseas to fly back before the rules lock in.

Cognizant is in an especially awkward spot. They rely heavily on visa hires, yet have been telling investors they’re “reducing dependency” and building U.S. hiring pipelines. This policy forces their hand. Either they swallow massive costs for new visa workers, or they scramble to find U.S. talent at much higher wages. Either way, it crushes margins and pressures delivery timelines.

Trump sells this as “bringing jobs back to Americans.” But blocking foreign engineers doesn’t magically produce local replacements overnight. Youth unemployment (20–24) is already 8.1%, the highest in 4 years, and underemployment just hit 8.1%, worst since 2021. This policy doesn’t solve that — it just pushes costs up and jobs offshore.

To me, this isn’t about protecting American workers. It’s just another reckless policy grenade — one that wrecks tech hiring, hits companies like Infosys and Cognizant directly in the wallet, and makes the U.S. a less competitive place to build the future.

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